Reliance Jio already has over 52 million subscribers in less than three months since the service went live. To grow the base even further, a big Jio announcement was made today. Reliance Industries Limited’s Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani addressed the employees and stakeholders of the company at an event which was broadcast live at 1.30 pm on the company’s social media channels.

It has been officially announced that Reliance Jio’s Welcome offer is extended to March 2017. The offer gives customers free unlimited voice, video calling, SMS and unlimited daily data. This announcement nullifies the reports of the TRAI order that had said that Reliance will have to end the Jio Welcome offer by December 4.

The company has set a target of 100 million subscribers. Reports also claim Reliance Jio could introduce a feature phone with 4G LTE capabilities.

Jio’s entry in the market has sparked a data war with rivals Airtel, Vodafone offering extra data and slashing prices for their consumers in order to retain them. With Reliance Jio, there is another service called Jio Fiber which is much-awaited. Jio Fiber is promising 1GBps speed for wired broadband in home, and is already being tested in some parts of India.

What do you need to know about Jio New year offer?

Reliance Jio Happy New Year offer vs Welcome Offer

First, Reliance has not scrapped the ‘Welcome Offer’, but just renamed the offer. For starters, users on the Welcome Offer will also be moved to the Happy New Year Offer from January 1, 2017. Also the free voice-call, video-call, free data and access to Jio apps has been extended till March 31, 2017.

All existing customer will continue to take advantage of the data, calls, and full bouquet of apps for free till March 31, 2017. Sadly new users who come on the Reliance Jio service after December 4 will be added straight to the Happy New Year Offer, and not to the Welcome Offer.

So how does that matter?

Well the Happy New Year Offer comes with an FUP limit that is only 1GB per day. Yes, that’s right; compared to the 4GB FUP on the Welcome Offer, Happy New Year will limit how much free high-speed data you can download on the Jio network.

Reliance Chairman Mukesh Ambani says this was done because some users are misusing their free data privileges and clogging it up for the rest of the people on the networks. This is not surprising to hear given this is free data we are talking about. Jio will reduce speeds to 128kbps after a user exhausts the 1GB limit on the Happy New Year plan.
Also read: Reliance Jio Happy New Year Offer: Full text of Mukesh Ambani’s speech

Does Jio plan to charge customers from January 1?

Nope, the free calling and data option still continues. It’s just that you’ll get less daily data in your allowance.

Will Reliance deliver SIM cards home?

Yes, this is also true. Reliance chairman Mukesh Ambani announced they will deliver Jio SIMs at home for customers, and it will be activated within 5 minutes via eKYC. The service will go live in 100 cities by December 31.

Given the demonetisation drive, we’ve seen a lot of emphasis on digital payments app, and Jio Money is another one of them. Jio Money was always part of the apps suite from the company, but now they have bigger plans.

Ambani announced the Jio Money merchant solution app which he claims will be available across millions of touch points. He further went to say that Aadhaar-based micro-ATMs will be deployed to help increase the usage of Jio Money. Starting December 5, merchants can download the app. The initial target is to have at least 10 million merchants on the platform, Ambani said.